China Is Blowing a Golden Opportunity From the Huawei Arrest
Instead of trying to divide the U.S. from its allies, Beijing is taking hostages.
Keeping quiet would serve both well.
Photographer: Thomas Pool/Getty Images
China is blowing the geopolitical opportunity of a lifetime. There has probably never been a better moment to undo America’s greatest strategic advantage by dividing the U.S. from its global network of democratic allies, many of which are horrified by President Trump’s rhetoric and policies and deeply worried about Washington’s staying power. Yet Beijing is doing its best to remind that democratic world that it has far more to fear from a hegemonic China than from an erratic America.
The latest example is China’s response to the detention of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, in Canada. The timing of that arrest, on charges of violating bank laws and U.S. trade sanctions, surely struck Chinese officials as suspicious. It came on the same day Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, amid high U.S.-China tensions in an ongoing trade war. Yet — some unwise comments from Trump notwithstanding — there is no indication that this was anything other than a legitimate effort to enforce U.S. laws that Huawei had broken. Canadian authorities simply would not have made the arrest otherwise.